Increases in the computing power available to consumers and business people have resulted in the use of a wide variety of new and complex software applications. In addition, the widespread adoption of the Internet, a broadband distributed public network, supports communication between various users via various devices. Further, the Internet allows users to update their software by contacting specific Internet addresses associated with the publishers of the their software and downloading updated and enhanced versions of their software.
These advances in computing have also supported tremendous growth in the adoption and play of video games. In the last decade, personal computer games have widely adopted the concept of connecting remote gamers and allowing them to play together, typically via an Internet data connection. Similarly, some game consoles support network data connections suitable for supporting gaming sessions featuring remote gamers.
The market for providing gaming hardware and software is very competitive and many games have a very brief shelf life. In addition, the increases in hardware and software capabilities have resulted in increasingly expensive and complex game development. That said, video games that are widely adopted are often remarkably profitable. With this in mind it is critical that a game developer understand their market. In some ways, the development of video games is often analogous to the design of toys in that, as the product is often designed to appeal to consumers that are in a different age group than the developer it is often difficult to predict what will be a successful and engaging video game experience versus an unappealing and unmemorable one.
In addition, in some very popular video games that support virtual persistent environments, it is known to hack certain game assets. As some gamers will participate in a game for an extended period of time just to acquire such a game asset, the unauthorized duplication (or hacking) of such game assets acts to reduce the appeal of these games and results in gamers playing the games for shorter periods of time. This is of particular concern when the gamers pay a monthly fee in order to participate in the virtual persistent environment.
It would be beneficial to provide comprehensive feedback information regarding the use of video game software. In addition it would be beneficial to provide enhanced control of the use of game assets.